May 13, 1958. Vice President Richard
Nixon is on a goodwill tour of South America. As his motorcade passes
through Caracas in Venezuela, it suddenly finds itself under attack, an
assault that will go down in history as the most violent of its kind on a high ranking
American official in a foreign country. Nixon survives the attack, and some of the
twelve United States Secret Service agents hired to protect him were injured.
But it could have been much worse. As you’ll see today, the President’s – and Vice
President’s – motorcade might well be one of the most dangerous places to be in the world,
but thanks to herculean protection measures, it’s also one of the safest places to be.
Getting out of the car is another matter, though, as you will see in today’s video.
We’ll come back to the Nixon attack shortly, and other times the President
found himself in a spot of trouble, but first, let’s look at how the
motorcade is structured nowadays. How many vehicles will be in any given
motorcade will be determined by what kind of security threat there is and who is traveling
within it. When the motorcade is out in force, you might see around 50 vehicles in all, although
during the pandemic, as many as 100 vehicles were seen in the motorcade. That was more about
social distancing than security threats though. In front of the motorcade, you’ll usually see
the police, who are named “sweepers”. In front of them, just a few minutes ahead, will be the
“Route Car.” As the motorcade is traveling, all the vehicles will be in touch with the Route
Car just in case there is any danger ahead. Also, in front of the motorcade is the “Pilot
Car.” This does almost the same job as the Route Car but is not as far ahead.
Right at the front of the main motorcade will be the “Lead Car,” which could be any
vehicle the Secret Service chooses. That might mean a run-of-the-mill cop car or one
of the special limousines we’ll discuss soon. As we said, the number of vehicles around
the President’s car is determined by the potential perceived threat. The central group
of vehicles, limousines, and SUVs, is known as the “Package,” and the President or other high
official will be in the middle of this package. Often also in tow will be his family,
perhaps other White House officials, VIPs, members of the press, and of course,
his security. In the sky, you might see two Presidential Airlift helicopters, either a
Marine One VH-3D Sea King or a VH-60N Black Hawk. If you’re wondering how so many
vehicles get to their destination, look no further than the Boeing C-17
Globemaster III military transport aircraft. And just in case anything goes wrong, you’ll
usually find a high-tech ambulance. Hopefully, the SUVs fitted with anti-aircraft guns will
ensure that the ambulance is never needed. So, what looks like just a fleet of cars
is actually quite a formidable traveling military force. If you were ever dumb enough to
try and find out what would happen if you could somehow jump in front of it with a plastic gun in
your hand, you might not live to tell the tale. While VIPs and White House officials may be
traveling in armored Chevrolet Suburbans or Chevrolet Tahoe SUVs, when the President
is out on the road, you will often find him in a specially designed limousine that is
sometimes referred to as “The Beast.” It’s also sometimes called “Cadillac One,” “First
Car,” or by its codename, “Stagecoach.” Things have certainly come a long way since Lee
Harvey Oswald fired some shots from a Texas School Book Depository and ended the life of John F.
Kennedy, the then President of the United States. Not only will you never see the President
these days traveling around in a car with an open-top roof, but the vehicle he’ll
be sitting in will be armored, and armed. The Beast has five-inch-thick (13 cm) bulletproof
glass. If someone could somehow cause a rucus around the President’s car, he would be able to
stay in there and wait it out. That’s because it’s also hermetically sealed and has its own internal
environment. Bullets could be flying while smoke bellowed in the street, and the President could,
for all intents and purposes, just sit in the car playing a game of chess on his phone.
In 2016, General Motors was paid a whopping $15,800,765 to build the most recent variation of
the President’s car. The money wasn’t just for one car, but a series of cars. That’s still a lot of
money, but the Beast is far from being an ordinary car. As well as its armor, it can be covered in
what’s called multi-scale camouflage, which in certain circumstances will make it hard to see.
The eight-ton behemoth has eight-inch thick steel doors, which aren’t just tough enough
to stop bullets but can protect the President against biological and chemical
attacks, as well as withstand explosives. If the President thinks it necessary, he could
also push a button to separate the front and back of the car with a glass partition if he ever wants
to discuss something the drivers doesn’t need to hear. Also on board is a communication center
equipped with all the latest tech, including a satellite phone which makes sure the President
can contact the outside world at all times. If he did come under attack, and we mean a serious
one, he could at least be assured that the fuel tank won’t blow up. It’s armor-plated and contains
a kind of foam that stops it from exploding if hit with an explosive. The Kevlar tires will not shred
or puncture, but if they are somehow destroyed, the Beast’s wheels will still work without
them. The chassis is also very difficult to destroy since it’s reinforced with steel plates.
As for hitting back, night vision cameras at the front of the car will give the President an
advantage in the dark. The car contains pump action shotguns, rocket-powered grenades,
and it can fire off tear gas and smoke screens at the push of a button. There are other
weapons on board, but as you probably guessed, the White House is not interested in letting
the public know every detail about the Beast. The defensive features don’t stop there. It’s been
reported that if anyone touches the door handles, they’ll be hit with a 120-volt electric
shock, if the car is under lockdown mode. If that’s not James Bond-esque enough
for you, it’s rumored that the Beast has a button you can press which will release a
small oil spill for any chasing car to slip on. Even if someone should try and activate a
bomb nearby, the President’s “Secret Service Countermeasures Suburban” is supposed to be
able to jam remote signals that are designed to actuate an explosive. This same suite
can also detect if an RPG is launched. It does this using its electronic warfare sensor
capabilities and allows for countermeasures to be deployed ensuring the President’s safety.
If the very worst should happen while the President is in the Beast, he will
have the nuclear football at his side, allowing him to dispatch the codes that make it
possible for a nuclear weapon to be launched. But let’s say somehow something gets through this
armored Beast, and the President is injured. In the unlikely instance of this happening, he can
at least use some of the oxygen stored in the car, and some of the blood kept in the car’s
fridge. It wouldn’t be ideal for him to use these things alone, but there is always
a doctor and possibly other medical staff traveling right next to the President’s car.
As you can imagine, weighing as much as it does, the Beast is not exactly a nimble car. It takes
around 15 seconds for the car to reach 60 miles per hour. It’s also not cheap to run, getting
only about four miles for every gallon of gas. For many reasons, the Beast
isn’t always an ideal car, especially when the security threat is low.
This is why you might well find the President being driven in a 2005 Cadillac DTS-inspired
limousine, which is much easier to handle. It still has state-of-the-art communications
systems and top-notch armor, but it’s not quite as tooled up as the Beast. It’s also
apparently pretty comfortable. That’s because it has an adaptive seat system that will adjust
by itself to suit the occupant’s seating position. When the President is traveling to a destination,
often referred to as a “mission,” US Intelligence may not always take an obvious route.
Vehicles in the motorcade may change position several times while new cars might
join, and others leave. The term agents use for this is the “shell game,” which will have
been choreographed many times before traveling. For obvious reasons, the drive to the destination
might not always follow the clearest route. On top of that, at times, the President might
not even be in the motorcade. In this case, the motorcade acts as a decoy.
We are sure you are wondering what would happen if someone tried to attack the
motorcade. You already know that it did happen to the man who would become a disgraced
President after the Watergate scandal. Things are much different now, but not so
much because of what happened to Nixon but because of what happened to JFK. That’s when
security really ramped up. In the Nixon case, the perpetrators were allowed to get
too close to the motorcade. Secret Service agents covered the President as
angry crowds hit the car and smashed a window or two. These people were probably
linked to the Communist Party of Venezuela, and to be honest, they weren’t exactly the
most highly trained assassins in the world. Still, things could have been much worse. The
Secret Service agents had their weapons at the ready and were about to open fire when Nixon
told them not to shoot. Had they started firing at the attackers, there could have been a fairly
sizable bloodbath, and the goodwill tour would have looked more like a declaration of war. Some
agents got bruised in the tussle with the mob, but that was about it in terms of injuries.
If you ask what would have happened if Nixon had been in the Beast with all of its modern
technology, well, for a start, the windows of his vehicle would not have been smashed in.
While agents may still have covered the President, they really wouldn’t have needed to.
Also, as training has been ramping up since JFKs death, these agents would already be
aware of some sketchy elements in the crowd. The motorcade would never have taken that route. If it
had and people had started attacking the car, you can be sure that Secret Service sniper teams on
roofs nearby would have had those people in their sights. If they were given the green light to open
fire, the attack would be over in a few seconds. It goes without saying that we at the
Infographics Show can’t tell you the exact protocols and procedures that are in place if such
an attack were to happen today. If we knew that, the Secret Service might as well rename itself the
Overt Service. We can still feel confident that the President is safe when he is out and about.
Maybe some of you are now thinking we are wrong about that. That’s because you might know
about the name John Warnock Hinckley Jr. This guy, unhinged, obsessed with Hollywood stars, and without doubt out of his mind, tried to
kill President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, by firing a .22 caliber revolver at him.
He’s now got his own YouTube channel where he shares his passion for
music, but it took decades for him to get out of psychiatric hopsital.
He explained why he wanted to kill the President in a letter he wrote to the movie star,
Jodie Foster, the woman he was obsessed with. The letter went:
“Over the past seven months, I've left you dozens of poems, letters, and love
messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the
phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. ... The
reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.”
In terms of gathering intelligence on possible threats, the Secret Service will always have a
hard time trying to find such crazy outliers. This man was certainly no Osama Bin Laden. He
was love-struck and obviously mentally ill. The agents did their job and risked
their lives by jumping on the President, but he was hit anyway. What’s ironic is
that he was only hit because one of the bullets ricocheted off the Presidential
limousine, the car there to protect him. Reagan coughed up some blood due to an
injury to his lung. He was in a bad way, but he reached the hospital just four minutes
after being shot. Obviously, the fastest route to the closest hospital is always worked out
before the President goes on his travels. After arriving there, it was soon discovered
that Reagan was in shock, and his injuries were possibly life-threatening, but he was a tough old
boot and was in good enough shape to say to his wife on her arrival, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
A police officer named Thomas Delahanty and a Secret Service agent named Timothy McCarthy
were also hit. Press secretary James Brady took a bullet to the right side of his head and,
after a long time recovering in the hospital, was severely disabled for the rest of his life.
This shows us that the most dangerous part of traveling for a President is not when he is
inside his heavily armored car but when he is moving around on foot. Any Secret Service agent,
or a bodyguard for that matter, will tell you that going in and out of places where there are
crowds is the most nerve-wracking part of the job. Now you need to watch “Ways They Tried to
Assassinate Hitler.” Or, have a look at …
